Around 3 in the afternoon, I couldn’t take it anymore. Usually I love my office with its view into the forest, windows open to the sounds of a rushing creek and pine-scented air. But I fled to escape the noise of heavy construction — the whine of engines, pounding of boulders being scraped across the earth, buzz of chain saws, clank of hammers hitting metal, and most irritating — incessant beep-beep-beep of machinery backing up.